Facebook Home Manages Half a Million Downloads in its First Week

So, Facebook Home is on Google Play and available for download on all the advertised Android phones. How’s it doing? Could be better, could be worse.

The Facebook-centric UI has notched 500,000 downloads in its first week, according to a report from TheNextWeb. That’s a pretty solid showing considering it’s only available for the Galaxy S3 and S4, Note and Note 2, and the HTC One X and One X+. That’s the good news, anyway. The bad news for Facebook is that a lot of those downloads might have been followed by subsequent uninstalls. Facebook Home has been saddled with a two-star rating on Google Play, with many having less than nice things to say about the new UI.

There’s always the caveat that haters are going to hate, especially where Facebook is concerned, but there seems to be quite a few legitimate gripes, besides the confusing “I don’t want this much Facebook!” (why in the world did you download it?). Users have not been liking the increased battery drain or the uptick in data usage, especially important in a post-unlimited data world. The UI has also lost the interest of many Android fans who are very much into customization – the lack of widgets and customization options has turned many off.

All that said, we’ll have to wait for sales numbers of the HTC First to start rolling in before we can tell just how successful Facebook Home has been in the early going.